Mount Index

This rugged peak is impossible to miss on a clear day while driving westward on Highway 2. Its intimidating pillars of granite, rising thousands of feet into the air, are complemented by the beautiful Lake Serene at its base. A visit during the winter months is guaranteed to impress with frequent avalanches of snow roaring down its icy walls. Mount Index actually consists of three distinct summits and this blog post is about reaching the tallest but easiest of the three.

Cassondra and I set out to climb it on May 20th. It was a rather hot day, with summit temps forecast at 60 degrees Fahrenheit. Ideally you want the temperatures cool for this climb because the upper route faces south east and gets baked by the sun throughout the day. We had attempted Index in April of last year but when the sun hit the upper mountain we watched avalanche after avalanche cascade down the mountain. It was awesome to watch, but not a good day for climbing.

Overgrown section of the east ridge

This time around, the temps had already been high for weeks and we were confident the mountain had gone through its shed cycle. Our main concern now was that the snow which made the upper gullies passable would be too thin to boot up or completely gone exposing the wet 5th class rock below.

Traverse to hourglass gully

We started at 2:30am to avoid the worst of the heat. A thunderstorm had just rolled through and we could still see lightning to the east. Nevertheless, we set out towards Lake Serene and arrived just after 4:30am. The lake ice was already breaking up but the boulder field we needed to follow along the west shore was still packed solid with snow. We ate a quick snack on Lunch Rock and put on our boots and gaiters to deal with snow.

Starting up hourglass gully

From Lunch Rock, a well worn climber’s trail avoids some lake shore cliffs by traversing high in the trees and then depositing you back to the lake shore via a simple downhill scramble. Rockfall and avalanches are common here, so no need to venture uphill until you reach the south end of the lake. Framing the south shore you can already see the crux of the climb, the steep east ridge. With adequate snow, you won’t encounter much bushwhacking, but there was not adequate snow and Cassondra began to regret wearing shorts.

Looking up from constriction

There are two distinct rock slabs on the ridge. The first one is less steep and less exposed and covered in snow during winter. The second one is definitely fourth to easy fifth class with exposure. If it seems harder than that, you’re off route. In general, you want to be more on the Lake Serene side of the ridge when it starts getting steep. Save weight and just bring a few alpine draws to sling trees if you opt for roping up. Cassondra and I roped up and swapped quick leads up the ridge. After some steep climbing you will traverse across a small saddle. From here there is only 50 or so feet of steeper climbing before the ridge begins to flatten out.

Looking up at the upper hourglass

Follow the ridge until it meets the cliffs of Index and then traverse under the cliffs until you encounter the first wide gully to your right. This is the start of the hourglass gully. We arrived here around 10:45am. I read reports about icefall raining down the gully in winter but all we encountered was one large but slowly rolling boulder. We put on microspikes and booted towards the constriction. Moats were forming to the left and right, but the center of the constriction was still plenty thick.

Thwarted: downclimbing upper hourglass

From the constriction, the top of the hourglass continues slightly towards the left and gets steeper. We booted up in this direction but were devastated to find an impassable moat splitting the gully just 100’ from the summit ridge. It was noon, and with the midday heat upon us, we felt like our only option was to start heading home. We took a quick look at the topo map and it seemed like there was a gentler slope to our right that also led to the top. We decided to give it a shot.

Cassondra traversing upper hourglass

We downclimbed towards the constriction and then traversed over to climbers right. We found a snow free patch underneath some trees and stopped to cool off in the shade, eat a snack, put on crampons and ditch any gear not necessary for the final ascent. It was hard to see from here if this alternate route would go but it didn’t seem very steep. We had never encountered any GPS routes or trip reports that didn’t follow the upper hourglass so the excitement was building as we started up.

Summit ridge

After the first 300’, we could see that we’d make it up. In fact, the route was much less steep than the upper hourglass. There was even an option to get off the snow and scramble up on mellow rocks to the right. We found two old backpacks and a bivy sack among the rocks here. One backpack had two backcountry meals and a pair of rock climbing shoes. They seemed from the early 2000’s. I’m not sure why they were abandoned here.

On the summit

We had now gained the summit ridge and from here it was just a flat walk to the summit itself. We topped out at 2:15pm under blue skies and virtually no wind. We looked down at the town of Index and Lake Serene, then lounged out on the summit while we read the single sheet of paper that was the summit register. We started back down at 3:15pm.

Descending east ridge

The descent was uneventful until we hit the east ridge. We downclimbed most of it using veggie belays, but opted to rappel the low 5th class section. On the lower rock slab, we passed a few existing rappel stations that didn’t seem appealing but at some point were forced to set up our own. This ended up being a terrible rappel through trees and we were unable to pull the rope. I prusiked back up and managed to free it. We were finally off the ridge by 7pm.

Heading home

The rest was just a basic reversal of the uphill route and we were back at the car around 10:30pm. It was already dark and I promptly fell asleep in the passenger seat as Cassondra drove us to Wendy’s and then home by midnight.

GPX track: https://www.strava.com/activities/9111276622